Independence

Ok some of you may know that I spent nearly 4 months earlier this year in Hospital, once I got out due to passing out with unknown causes, I was told not to drive for 6 months. Now some 8 months later, I decided it was time to drive.

Yesterday was the day, the car needed to be taken to the tyre shop. As it has sat for over 8 months, two of the tyres were pancakes, the car battery was dead (I had tried to charge it but due to it being discharged so far it will never old a charge) I have a collection of 12V 2oAh Gel cells for my monster UPS, that one day I will build. Well the batteries were not charged :( I even grabbed the 12V 7Ah Battery off the Security system.... So I call roadside assistance, I was meant to be at the tyre shop by now, the operator at roadside assistance tod me they would be there within 2 hours :( Luckily 10 or so minutes later the patrol man was on the door :) Quick look over the engine, jump start and off we went :)

The tyre shop tells me I need 4 not 2 tyres (they only had 2 in stock) so I will have to go back in a week or so :) (I am using Kumho KH17 tyres) They also fitted a new battery :)

I drove there, did a bit of running around with Kos, so did a bit of driving :) I feel so much better to have my independence back :)

Hope you all have a good Christmas, I will be :)

Got to do some electronics work today :):):)

Well, I was expecting today, not looking forward to it as it is very hot in Perth today. The Kave has aircon, but it is slow to cool the room down.

Today's plan changed though, Kos' wireless mouse died :( So I had to go out to the Kave early. The mouse problem was easy, just cat hair (hmmm wonder where that comes from Taffeta ????) in the optical path of the scroll wheel. Removed the cat hair and all was well... ALMOST, to get to this area I had to pull it all the way apart. Doing this I managed to pull the battery connector off the PCB (the force holding the plug in was greater than the surface mount solder joints!!!) so I had to bypass the connector, and straighten the case to put it all back together. So now one happy Kos.

I also had to look at a clock for the farther in-laws car. This module is electronic so it comes to me for repair lol. He sent me 3, so I could marry up all the best parts. This was tested on the bench and all works :)

So I am happy, was a bit miffed at having no electronics stuff to do.....

Brushing up on Maths

Well it has been 20 years since I finished high school (year 10) now I am going to do the degree, I thought I should revise maths (eg trig and algebra) as I have been informed that electronics engineering is the most heavy in maths of all the engineering disciplines.

So I have found a few websites, I am reading all the info and doing the spot tests. It is kinda fun (I am strange lol) I have a better interest in things like this since I left school, as I can now see how it fits in to my career path, where as at school, I could not, so I did not bother to study or do assignments (hmmm how did I ever pass lol)